EVALUATING THE COMPETENCE OF INVESTIGATIVE AND PROSECUTORIAL AGENCIES FOR CAPITAL OFFENCES IN KENYA: A CASE STUDY

Abstract

The above sentiment was a defence lawyer ' s response to a press interview upon winning a sensational murder case in which a Permanent Secretary had been found brutally killed in a fire inferno. His wife was charged with starting the fire . She was convicted of murder and sentenced to the mandatory death sentence by the High Court, but the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction. The grounds of suspicion and circumstantial evidence were the only means which the High Court used to determine that the accused had a strong motive for killing her husband. The Court of Appeal found that the circumstantial evidence relied on by the High Court was not sufficient to condemn the accused person he recent past has seen some very critical utterances being levelled against the investigative and prosecutorial agencies of the Republic of Kenya by the judiciary, owing to the cavalier manner in which these agencies h a ve handled criminal cases . In Republic v. David Manyara Njuki and Twelve Others, the thirteen accused persons were facing ten counts of murder under Section 203 as read with Section 204 of the Penal Code, Cap. 63 of the Laws of Kenya. The trial judge, in declaring that the accused persons had no case to answer at the close of the prosecution case, criticised the police for relying on the evidence of an informant without attempting to verifv its acc uracy . "It is incumbent upon the police to ver~fy the truth and accuracy of the information :'hich they allegedly received from their informer_ but they do not seem to have carried ..,, . out '.:!F.ly independent investigation s at all. ..